The State Education Agency at the Helm, Not the Oar

Reads and Resources

In this report, Bellwether Education Partners acknowledges that–while State Education Agencies (SEAs) have never been asked to do more to reform public education–they were really only designed to distribute state and federal dollars, and to monitor compliance. Today, SEAs are constrained by (1) the civil service rules that govern human capital decisions; (2) convoluted procurement processes; (3) cumbersome rule-making processes that impede flexibility and the potential for mid-course corrections; (4) competing political demands; and (5) institutional resistance to change.

Given these limitations, Bellwether opines that SEAs must learn to “‘steer’ more and ‘row’ less” and proposes an approach to get there. Read it here.